Changes In Two Lifetimes
by Paolo Anson Ramon
Summary: Theodore wasn't really that special to begin with... "Dying wasn't really in my agenda... Same with living again..." Then again things change all the time. SI.
1. Prolouge

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson, only Rick does. Cause not only would that be weird, I'm sure that dozens of millions of fangirls/fanboys would beat the living shit out of me. Oh and Annabeth would probably do a Judo Flip on me which brings me to a question. How the hell did she know that?**

**Prolouge**

Reincarnation

Rebirth. Reborn. These are words to describe the situation I was in.

It was easy to say it. To speak of it.

My name is Theseus "Theodore" Jackson. (Sounds familiar?)

Well, it wasn't always like that. Before I was reborn-

Oh yeah. Would you believe if I told you that I was reborn? In a world where monsters exists?

No? Kinda? Yes?

Then you are either crazy or you have a pretty good idea of what I was feeling.

Well, I didn't believe it at first.

The story starts with the last thing I could remember...

* * *

><p>I remembered that I was drowning. Wherever I was it was so tight, hard to breathe and then-<p>

_I couldn't breathe. Water surrounded me and then suddenly. _

Light.

"WAHHHHHH!" A baby's cries echoed through my ears.

_Shut_ up. I groaned. _ I just want to sleep…_

And as soon as it came, it stopped. I looked around, my throat felt raw as if I had been crying.

_Which was impossible, cause I was drowning and then-_

I continued to look around, feeling sheets around me I sighed.

It was just a dream after all.

I squinted, the lights was _so_ bright and are those-voices? I craned my head as I tried to take a look around.

_People._

Dozens of them were talking. Muffled voices accompanied with a few beeps of a couple of electronics. I blinked as I tried to regain feeling in my legs once more.

_A hospital then._

The world seemed different. Blurry figures intercepted my line of sight, which wasn't that weird at all cause that would mean that my contacts have moved or-

Suddenly the hairs on my neck rose up and just as suddenly, an overpowering aura surrounded me. The aura was powerful and commanding, but gentle at the same time. The presence made me wants to lie on the floor and listen to the power of the sea. The feeling was accompanied with the action of being lifted into someone's arms, in turn, overwhelmed me.

_What the-? Excuse me sir, but I hate being manhandled. _I thought angrily. But as I tried to escape, the figure's arms held me tighter, but not harsh, as if one would to a baby. Suddenly I caught a whiff of the sea.

_The sea? Does that mean we're near the ocean? But Texas is far away from any oceans._

I calmed down albeit in confusion. What was going on? Fidgeting as I was being cradled on someone's chest, I attempted to voice out my complaint, but all I managed to do was swat the figure's flat chest.

A man's.

"Shh…Baby Theseus…Shh…." The man cooed. I stiffened.

_Theseus? What the hell-? My name's Ryan, not Theseus!? And I'm certainly not a baby. _I thought, once again trying to swat the man with my hands but failing. The hairs on my neck calmed down slightly, but I was still confused. The man chuckled and then a finger filled my view.

My chubby fingers settled on holding the man's finger, very, very, hard in an attempt to show my annoyance. But the man simply chuckled.

Wait. Chubby fingers?!

Curiously, I closed my hand. The baby's hand did the same. Overcome by sudden emotion, I felt that I was about to cry.

"My, Theseus is quite strong Sally." The man murmured joy apparent in his voice. I looked up, I couldn't see, but a warm glow seemed to come from the man. I couldn't see his features clearly, but maybe, just maybe, he was smiling. "And smart-I can see why you decided to call him that."

Suddenly, I was moved into another figure's arms. A woman.

I blushed.

"Yes. And here is the other one-"

"Oh?" Surprise was laced in the man's voice, and so I was I. I listened intently. I heard a shifting of cloth and another cry. Except that the cry was louder and a bit longer.

"Wow, Perseus, you have a powerful set of lungs don't you?" And just like that. The boy, Perseus, slowly stopped crying.

"I think he inherited it from you Poseidon."

My heart almost jumped off its place in my body.

_Wait- Sally, Perseus, Poseidon….. Don't tell me…. It's impossible…._

The man chuckled. But suddenly his voice turned slightly grim. "But Sally? Twins? Twins? Don't you know that it will be very hard to keep them safe? If my brothers found out-"

He left the sentence dangling.

A beat.

_Wait, I thought Percy's mum said that Poseidon never knew what he looked like then how-_ I shook my head. _It must be my presence, but if my presence was able to mess up with the story of Percy's dad... _

"I know." Sally sighed, rocking me back and forth. Her soft humming and constant motion was allowing a yawn to escape my now open mouth. I rubbed my eyes with my chubby hands, wanting to gain more information.

"-which is why I named them after the smartest and luckiest heroes. Especially Percy."

"Percy?"

"Perseus."

"Oh."

Silence, and then a sigh. He then continued to cradle Percy.

"Well, Perseus. You have a lot of things you need to face." A yawn erupted from my mouth and I started to feel sleepy, unnaturally so.

Posideion chuckled,"You too Theseus. And I have a feeling you will need all the luck you can get-" A pause.

"-Perseus and Theseus Jackson.-" He mused, a few heavy footsteps and soon a warm body occupied the space beside me. I wriggled uncomfortably. "-It has a nice ring to it no?" Somehow, I knew that he was talking to me.

No response.

"Now sleep."

I fought the urge to fall asleep. Somehow I _knew_ that when I would wake, that something would become _missing_ from my life, and I didn't want that. Though I tried to fight it, I was still a baby. As my eyelids slowly flickered, Poseidon dispersed into sea mist. My head dropped twice and then...

My world went black.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: This is dedicated to GaleSynch. This author has the absolute best SI stories I've read in a long time. Be sure to check out her stories like Your Saving Grace(PJO), Dragons Among Us (Fairy Tale) and others.**


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

The very moment I woke up in a cradle with my-fictional-character-but-now-turned-brother was the very moment when I had to accept that fact that I was in the world of Percy Jackson. It wasn't easy to swallow that fact either. That meant that my friends, my family, were gone. All gone.

(Or if my theory works, in a different dimension.)

Reliving my life as a baby again was weird. I had to learn how to walk, talk, sit, crawl and eat. I had to rely on someone else to change my diapers or to pick me up if I fell down (and that happened a lot.) My life usually consisted of this routine:

Sleep

Wake up

Eat

Play

(Go back to no.1 and Repeat. (Repeat, repeat, repeat.))

* * *

><p>Three years passed and I finally got the ability to stand up, run, and hop, and do other basic movements, but even then I had the same lifestyle, if not a bit adjusted. It was funny how Sally would often try to teach us how to speak, when I already knew some "<em>advanced langua<em>ges" when I get angry. But apparently that "word" would get gurgled and all I had to do was act cute and no one would ever know. (A technique I started to pick up to get away with a few things.)

I scratched my now black hair as I tried to peer into Sally's purse in instinctive child-like curiousity. I recently looked into the mirror and saw-

_Percy?_

At first I was surprised.

I mean, I was so used to seeing a person with green eyes and blonde hair staring back at me dully and without that much life in his eyes. So when I gazed into the little handmirror I pried open from it's little case, it was quite a shock.

I was almost an exact replica of Percy.

Same unruly raven black hair.

Same nose.

And the same mischiveous aura that we seemed to make.

But if I looked closer, there were a few differences, and one of those was that I took more to Sally in terms of height. I was a bit _shorter_ than Percy, but it didn't mean that I would _grow up short, _I also had ocean blue eyes, and a familar twinkle that always appears in Sally's eyes no matter what mood she was in. My skin tone also came from her, meaning I didn't have that _natural_ tan Percy had, but I didn't mind. I also had chubby arms, but since neither parents were fat in anyway, I knew that it was just_ baby fat_ and that _I wouldn't grow up_ fat (If camp has anything to say about that).

I smiled brightly, my chubby cheeks making my grin turn into a sort of a cute smile.

I'm gonna like this body.

* * *

><p>I can't say that I didn't like this lifestyle. I can't say that it was boring either.<p>

Every time Sally goes home. She would turn on the television and let us watch some "Fun educational videos." It was-_interesting_ to say at least.

I would try to sit there and watch, but after five seconds of boredom, Percy and I would try to wrestle each other for fun. Which would then lead us to an epic massive fight to the death- until Percy falls asleep, leaving me alone on the carpeted floor.

I _could_ say that I didn't get in trouble after that, but Sally started to figure out that it was _I _who started it and began to banish the only thing I had for entertainment, the T.V.

I didn't cry or sulked about that, it was the fact that without it, my flights to sleepy land was only three steps away. I didn't mind, everything was peaceful and knowing the future, I knew that I better stop whining about _boredom_ or I might not even _live_ to see another _boring day again. _

I figured that out when a monster entered our house. I was four or five I think when Sally married a mortal man, a smelly one that is. Gabe Ugliano with a massive size, pig-like eyes, a double-chin and a mean tongue, he could pass for any monster. We were around five, meaning that Percy and I could speak, and by the time we did, oh boy did we get into _a lot_ of _trouble_.

Smelly Gabe was far from nice-he was a monster to human kind. To be fair, he didn't abuse us in any perverted way, even with Sally- at least, not that I know of- and I even assured Percy that Gabe would be long gone even before we go to college. Which was true, though Percy didn't have to know any of that right?

There was that one time when he chucked my head in the toilet because I tried to punch him, but I was still five so surely I would be able to get Sally on the job right? Make her put Smelly Gabe in a Time out corner outside the house-permanently.

Things didn't go up for us during preschool.

I remember when the daycare teacher or something, left us in a hurry to do some "_private business_"in the toilet. Tired from playing and watching overly hyper kids running around, I took an extra long nap and the next thing I knew, a snake slithered in the room, trying to wrap itself unsuccessfully around my neck. I soon found out however, that the only reason that I was _alive_ was because _Percy_ somehow strangled it to _death_.

You heard me right, strangle it to death.

I never really considered the fact that I was very much _alive_ and Percy is not just any character, but my new found _brother_. To say I was grateful was an understatement; I vowed that I would protect him as best as I could. (not that he needed protection anyways.)

The teacher/daycare personnel didn't notice anything peculiar with a "_long rubber jump rope._" and let us play with it for awhile. I was interested with the head and later on, Percy and I, with our combined strengths, managed to rip the head off the snake, with me playing with it as an improvised puppet. By the time we had to go home Sally nearly had a heart attack when Percy and I showed "mom" our new _"toy."_

For a while, things got a little wonky before we had to move. Things were arguable peaceful for a while. Sure we got into a _few fights_,("They're kids, and it was their first time. They didn't know that was wrong." Sally argued.) _and sure_ the bathroom would get _really soaked_ for _unknown reasons, ("Sally!_ Your kids doesn't want to take a damn bath!"), but otherwise nothing _"totally"_ destructive happened.

And then the fight started.

It wasn't exactly a _fight _but it was the first heated argument between Gabe and Mum. And guess what the most hated and most loved people in the world (at least that's what Percy said) were fighting about.

Blue food.

It all started with Percy asking:

"Mom. Are there Blue cookies?" Percy's sea green eyes were wide and bright with anticipation and curiosity.

"Yes dear, there are blue coloured food like-"Sally started, drying her hands on the towel and started to ruffle his hair.

When Gabe interrupted with a loud,"No."

Percy looked defeated and kinda angry. I pretended to not pay attention. As I sat on the dinner table, sipping my grape juice with my feet dangling haphazardly, Sally didn't mind, I tried to keep an indifferent facade.

(The sofa was currently occupied by our smelly step-dad, and I hate that guy already, no need for me to give him a better reason to chuck me across the room.)

But it was hard to keep up an indifferent facade when Percy kept looking at me, as if asking for backup. With a sigh, I sipped the last of my grape juice and got off of the table via chair and asked a similar thing. Besides, I wanted to test a theory with my favorite colour.

"Mom? How about Green Cookies?"

She was about to answer a similar thing when Gabe yelled, "Sally, there is no such thing as Blue and Green cookies. Besides-" he said, folding his newspaper on his lap and leaning slightly to fish the remote from the pile of food and chips. "Those are such stupid colours."

Then he said in a lower tone, "Just like the colour of those brats' eyes." I guess Gabe didn't _mean_ it to be heard, but unfortunately it did and just like that, Sally decided that every day, she would bring blue and green cookies for Percy and I (respectively) from the shop she works in, as well as the free samples.

Eventually, the trend caught up with me and before I knew it, I _too_ was eating coloured food. I had a special fondness for them since, in my past life, my mum and dad (both bakers) would bake me cookies, pastries and the sorts. I knew from that moment on, that though I was reborn and that I might not see my real parents again, at least I had a new mother figure.

As I sat on the table, with Percy on my side, I made another promise that I vowed to keep. I will protect Sally no matter what.

* * *

><p><strong><em>AN: I wonder, if Perseus/Percy would get a sword as a weapon, then how about Theseus/Theo? Comment any suggestions below. Comments and reviews are appreciated. _**


	3. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer-I Don't Own Percy Jackson Or His Life Story**

**Chapter 2**

Years passed and things went without a hitch, well most of the time. Sure there were a few times monsters tried to attack us, but like Percy, I turned a blind eye. But this time, this monster was persistent.

I was in 3rd grade.

A man stalked Percy and I through the playground during our third grade at our third school. "The man" was wearing a fedora hat and a long trench coat, sort of like a spy would wear. I knew from the moment that guy started stalking us that it was a monster since the back of my neck seems to rise up. I figured that it usually happens when a _deity_ or any _non_-_mortal_ passed by me. Like other times, I turned a blind eye, but _boy_ is this _Cyclopes_ _persistent_. Did it worry me?

Nah.

Eventually the teacher threatened to call the authorities when we told her. The persistent Cyclopes laid off, but as he looked at us with his one eye, I knew that Percy saw it too. Percy tried to tell the teacher, but the teacher just looked at him worriedly.

"Are you sure you're alright Jackson? Maybe you stayed out too long in the sun, it is awfully warm." The teacher suggested kindly.

I snorted_. What a liar_. It was April, and April tends to get a little cold in New York.

Percy looked at her in disbelief.

I sighed, "Come on Perce, she won't believe us-"

"But-"

"Percy-" The teacher would suggest kindly," listen to your older brother-Theodore is it?-he is-"

I quickly interjected, getting annoyed by the minute,"-Thank you for thinking so highly of me. But we are twins." I gave her the evil eye, though I tried to keep a cool face.

I knew that Percy and I would get annoyed whenever a teacher would think that we were not twins. I mean, we looked alike. Both raven black hair and tanned skin, but just because my eyes were ocean blue, and his sea green, doesn't mean that we looked different.

"Sorry, but you're so mature and Percy-"She stammered, clearly embarrassed.

"Come on Percy, let's go." And with that, I dragged my twin brother but not before I flicked her "the bird."

Eventually I managed to convince him that the teacher was right about the man not being a "monster", but I could tell by the way he looked back at the playground that he wasn't so certain. Sighing, I slung my arm around his neck and assured him as best as I could.

"I'm your brother. You should know that I wouldn't lie to you."

He gazed at me with scrutiny that I wasn't even sure a nine year old could have. His green eyes seemingly inspecting my lie. He still seamed quite tense. He stopped looking and smiled. The conversation was dropped.

* * *

><p>Years passed and teachers still managed to confuse who was who, and eventually, our days usually consisted of this:<p>

"Theodore! Sit DOWN!"

"I'm Percy mam."

"Oh, sorry Theodore. Percy! Sit DOWN!"

It didn't help that Percy and I would get into separate fights with other schoolmates in different schools. Like in Fourth grade, I had a fight with Jonson about ripping my homework and throwing my lunch, while the other day Percy got into a fight with Smith about our mom. Eventually the teacher couldn't tell who beat the other student up and soon, whenever a fight started (which was daily), they would find a way to put us in detention together.

And with two ADHD and Dyslexic students, it was torture.

We were ending 5th grade now and once again, Percy and I was chucked out of the school. I didn't bother remembering the name; instead I started to look forward to one school in particular.

A few months passed and Sally finally found us a school to attend. Yancy Academy for troubled kids.

For troubled Kids.

I didn't mind, and I even tried to get out of trouble the first term. The routine "check-up" by the principal was finished, with the principal looking up and down from the file folders in our past schooling. He kept looking at us, back and forth, probably trying to confirm whatever was written on the folder. Finally, after he was done explaining the rules of the school-("You should not…Blah…Blah…Blah….Are you two even listening?!")

We were finally introduced to our class.

"Class this is Percy and Theodore Jackson. I expect you to treat them fairly and all that-"The homeroom teacher drawled. I stifled back a yawn as I stood on the front row.

"Is there a problem Percy?" He asked, looking at me as I looked at the class with a bored face.

Annoyed, I snapped back," Yes sir, that problem is you not being able to distinguish me and my brother. Say can you even distinguish an apple from a ruler?"

The teacher looked shock. I turned around at Percy, he too was shocked. Usually it was him who would get in trouble for the first day, and then I would do my comedian stunt the next day. Percy sent a mental message into my brain, well not necessarily my brain, but you get the idea.

_Don't get into trouble._

I snorted as the teacher's face purpled with rage. _In this new school were attitude gets you in trouble, well I'm determined to help you get a good rep. Perce._

"Say sir, what's your name again?" I asked innocently. If I was going to end up suffering for the rest of six grade, I have to make sure I get a _good_ first impression from the class.

"DETENTION!"

"Hi Mr. Detention. Say-"I slung a lazy arm around his shoulder. The same thing I do whenever I got had to go to a new school. "-you think that I could be a comedian when I grow up?"

"Not in this place Mr. Jackson." The teacher growled, his glasses were shaking and his face was red.

"NOW GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"

I ignored his shouting and saluted instead. Snickers rose from the class which quickly turned to laughter. I jabbed Percy on the side, whispering, "Save me a seat okay?"

He nodded, his mouth twitching to form a smile.

"Well it was nice meeting you sir-goodbye!" I yelled as I ran into the hall, laughing as I did so towards the detention room.

The students then roared in laughter, before it too faded away.

First quarter was torture for both of us. Apparently the teacher that _I_ made _fun_ of was _also our Music_ teacher, our _History_ teacher and our _Math_ teacher, all on the same days. Percy glared at me the moment we found out, and the only thing I could think of to say was: "Opps."

It _also_ turned out that Music, Pre-Algebra and History was our first three periods, earning me a stern glare whenever any of us started to speak or rather sleep.

Apparently, the Music and Pre-Algebra teachers had Chicken Pox the other day, earning us a full one hour and forty-five minute "fun time" with Teacher Grumps.

I groaned as I clutched my head, music notes dancing taunt fully across my paper. I looked at my right and saw Percy groaning as well. I placed my head down as soon as the teacher started speaking.

I clutched my papers.

First semester was going to be a bore.

* * *

><p>There were good news and bad news.<p>

The first good news was that Grover became close friends with Percy.

The second good news was that the Latin teacher got replaced by Mr. Brunner.

The bad news:

So did the Pre-algebra teacher.

It was second semester and "Mrs. Dodds" stepped into our room, looking around menacingly. Grover, who was at my left looked increasingly pale, I understood why. The back of my neck stood up, my muscles tensed and I knew that Mrs. Dodds wasn't any normal Pre-Algebra teacher, no she was a-

Kindly One.

My eyes were wide, am I was sure I've gone pale cause the next thing I knew, Percy was shoving me lightly, asking me if I was alright.

I blinked, trying to give Percy an excuse as to why I look as pale as a clean sheet. After a full minute of silence the best my ADHD brain could do was:

"I'm fine, Percy. Just a bit nervous-say do you think that jacket of her's would fit me?" I asked in a joking tone, soon enough, all the worry left Percy's face and nodded, doing a once over of the teacher and grinned.

"Not at all."

The rest of the class, I was taking down notes diligently and with wide eyes. It must have been weird, seeing how I barely paid attention to the rest of the class, but soon enough, their mortal minds soon forgotten whatever that was worrying me and continued listening.

When Pre-Algebra was done, I continued to eye her warily at the corner of my eye. The classroom was empty aside from Mrs. Dodds, Grover and a kid sleeping heavily on the corner. I tensed.

_If_ _"Mrs. Dodds" attacked us now, well-I don't like our chances. _

Grover seemed to sense what I was feeling because Grover laughed nervously.

"It's okay Theodore, just don't- don't do anything stupid."

I blinked, quite surprised. I'd forgotten about Grover's link did not only apply to Percy, but to me as well.

"W-what?"

"Don't do anything stupid." Grover repeated again once more.

Silence.

"She's not human right?" I asked, quietly, my hand fishing a pencil from my book bag and started twirling it between my fingers.

Grover's eyes widened. His eyes darting back and forth to make an excuse.

A lie.

"Of course she's human-"

"No she's not," I continued to spin the pencil faster, and faster until it was a threatening blur. Grover seemed to eye the pencil point warily.

Silence. Then footsteps. I looked at the corner of my eye. She was walking this way. Grover tensed. I tensed as well, deciding to test my very dangerous theory.

The hair on my back rose and then-

"I mean seriously! What kind of woman wears a Bike Jacket like that, I mean she looks mean enough to ride a Harley!" I exclaimed, a smile on my face. The switch of moods clearly surprised Grover as his nose twitched.

Grover looked like he was going to faint before laughing nervously, "Yeah, nice joke Theo, you almost got me there." He continued to laugh/bleat nervously.

I turned around, the feeling of being watched, filling me once more. But as I turned around, Mrs. Dodds was still sitting behind the desk, filing student files and checking answers. My eyes narrowed.

_Just like I thought…_

Kids started going back into the room. Nancy continued to chuck her uneaten sandwich at Grover from behind me. Percy continued to defend Grover from the "attacks." Everything is normal, everyone is normal.

But not _everyone._ My gaze flickered to Mrs. Dodds.

_It was a Kindly One…_

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Here you go. Still accepting suggestions. Peace!**


	4. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer- I don't own Perce**

**Chapter 3**

Life was being a bitch.

Or maybe it wasn't, either way time passed by quickly and soon enough I found myself and Grover being pelted by Little Ms. Bobafit with her uneaten peanut-butter sandwich. It was May and Percy and I recently turned twelve a few months ago, it was fun, we had a bunk bed party and got night detention as a result.

Anyway, today was the day we were going to a field trip to Manhattan with-twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

It sounded like torture, then again it _was_ always torture.

Not that I disliked Museums, so far nothing painfully excruciating happened to either of us in a Museum before, so I thought I could give it a shot. The same couldn't be said for my classmates, but I had to give myself a breather every few minutes. I was a _bit-calmer _than my twin brother in terms of patience, but every now and then the earth would rumble slightly and the water in their clear water bottles would shake threateningly when I was pissed off. As I sat on the yellow school bus with twenty-eight mental-case kids in tow, I was about to loose all hope on humanity when I remembered that Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes... and fears.

It turns out that wasn't the only one who wanted to come, it turns out that Mrs. Dodds was tagging along too. The hair on the back of my neck rose as Mrs. Dodds sat near Mr. Brunner and in turn, near to me.

Mr. Brunner was in his motorized wheelchair today. His thinning hair and a scruffy beard lightened into something similar to ashen grey, I knew that his hair would change whenever he had to check test papers at night. Today he was wearing his trademark frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class, _war_ games that is. He also had this awesome collection of _real_ Roman armor and imperial gold weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me and Percy to sleep, not that I would want to.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at our fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, we had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I was sure Percy wasn't aiming for the school bus, and I wasn't trying to set it on fire but of course we got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, Percy sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.

This trip, we were determined to be good.

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my brother's best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.

I could have chose to help him, but I didn't and instead I chose to look at the aisle of the bus, trying to look as bored as possible to divert attention. Call me _self conservative,_ but after a few months in Yancy Academy taught me one thing:

_Loyalty_ wasn't exactly my strong point.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades trying to find us, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you, I knew that he was no ordinary paralytic-teenage-kid, no he was a _satyr._

But other than that he was just as normal as us. I've always assumed that because they were magical creatures that he would have sort of tolerance for this kind of things, but apparently that wasn't the case for Grover. It didn't help that I wasn't exactly completely loyal to Grover. I knew I was being unfair and insensitive to the young Satyr, considering what he was going to do later on, but he was quite wimpy. Sometimes my wavering loyalty would get me and others in trouble, making enemies with Nancy Bobafit rather quickly.

I knew the risks and dangers of a wavering loyalty, even more so at this _time _and _age._ But I also knew the nice things of a wavering loyalty, well if you consider it _nice. _I am _quite_ understanding, I can't exactly trust him considering the big mistakes he made in the past.

And boy were those mistakes big, Big Three BIG.

So yeah, I guess you can understand hesitance, but there was something else I found out rather quickly.

One time, when I was trying to escape class, I got into a fight with the leader of a gang of some sort in school. I didn't pay attention to him that much and even formed a temporary alliance.

Temporary because after a few _convincing_ words from another group, I revealed to them the leader of the other gang and got into bad terms with them since. I was hesitant and stubborn with keeping it a secret, but nevertheless my loyalty wavered, and that is a _bad thing_ to have as well. The point is that I knew that my wavering loyalty was bad, even more so considering my parentage associated with the sea, and I had a bit more "_seaish" _personality and thus, my loyalty would waver.

Knowing what the future held, I wasn't exactly all that welcoming with my _now realized flaw. _I knew that if I didn't want Percy to die, or my family in general, I had to strengthen my willpower, since a Child Of a Big Three would often be a powerful ally.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of her sandwich that stuck in Grover's curly brown hair, and she knew we couldn't do anything back to her because Percy and I were already on probation. The headmaster had threatened us with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip, specifically Percy.

"I'm going to kill her," I heard Percy behind me mumbled.

Grover tried to calm him down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

Grover dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch and it hit me instead, I glared daggers at Nancy.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've

been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a _steele,_ for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time Percy and I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from "Georgia" who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured we were the devil spawn (an ironic statement). She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew Percy and I were going to get after-school detention for a month.

That wasn't the only thing I knew. Like Grover she wasn't just some ordinary _Harley-riding-math-teacher_, she was a creature like Grover, but not exactly like Grover either. She was a Kindly One.

One time, after she'd made Percy and I erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I heard Percy tell Grover that he didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at Percy from the corner of my eye, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

I nodded absentmindedly.

_Even with Percy's obliviousness, he was a keen observer. Huh._

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and Percy turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"

Apparently it came out louder than he meant it to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

I looked around and saw that Percy's face was totally red. He said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

I looked at the carving, then at Percy's face. Obvious relief settled on his face and I knew that he recognized it as well.

Percy cleared his throat. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."

"Well..." A pause. "Kronos was the king god, and-""God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," He corrected himself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

"-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," Percy continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears, which I thought was awesome.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed, he then directed his question to me. I simply shook my head. He sighed."Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."

I knew that was coming so I continued to walk towards the area where we were about to get our lunch when Mr. Brunner said.

"You too Theodore."

I froze, I wasn't expecting this. Reluctantly, I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned towards Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go-intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything. And ironically he was.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told him.

"About the Titans?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh."

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson, you too Theodore Jackson."

I just stood there on the corner awkwardly. I wasn't the one who answered the question so I waited patiently. My ADHD mind finding ways to entertain myself with my thoughts, and this time it chose Percy as the subject.

I looked at Percy with sympathy.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshiped. But Mr. Brunner expected Percy and I to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that we both have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and we had never made above a C-in my life. No, he didn't expect us to be as good; he expected us to be better.

While I was hanging on, (just barely) Percy was drowning in a big pile of expectations and I couldn't really help him float on his own. I frowned. Having a wavering loyalty doesn't change the fact that I still do have loyalties tied to some people. Some much stronger a bond than others, but sometimes (most of the times) I feel guilt and the need to help my family, especially Percy.

I heard Percy mumble something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral. Considering who he was, he might have been.

He told Percy to go outside and eat his lunch.

I was about to follow Percy outside when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."

I turned around to face him and noticed that his attention was directed to the Stela. After a few more minutes of staring at the Stele, Mr. Brunner turned to look at me, his face very hard to read.

"Theo, be-be careful with who you meet in the near future. I expect alot from both of you in the future. And I expect you that you will keep a close eye on your brother."

My eyes widened in surprise. Before I could ask what he meant he left, leaving me in an almost deserted Museum.


	5. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer- I don't own anything except my oc's.**

**Chapter 4**

I stood there for a while, surrounded by art of every kind as "Mr. Brunner's" "advise" echoed through my head.

_I expect a lot of great things from you...keep an eye on your brother..._

I frowned and started walking, stopping just next to the door of the museum.

_Did he...Can it be?_

I shook my head once more and took a step outside.

_Must be my paranoia._

The class had gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. If I was a _normal_ _human being _I would have figured that maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

Or an angry god.

But as usual, nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

I spotted Grover and Percy sitting on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. " Just forgot something, how about Percy?"

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple? Percy already gave his so-"

"Sure." I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about our mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. After years of living with her and growing up again, all I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and Percy and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give us.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table. I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends-I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch on Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at Percy and I with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos. I glanced at Percy and I could tell that he was having trouble controlling his temper when suddenly my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

I don't remember Percy touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"

"-the water-"

"-like it grabbed her-"

I knew what they were talking about. And I also knew that we were in trouble again, and not just any kind of trouble-

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned to Percy and then to me. The back of neck stood and a little voice in my head told me to _Run! Run! Run! _There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if we'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester.

"Now, honey-"

"I know," Percy grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."

_-Monster Trouble..._

Percy stared at him, stunned while I just sat there quietly. I knew what was happening. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death and I knew why.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But-"

"You-will-stay-here."

Grover looked at Percy desperately.

"It's okay, man," He told him. "Thanks for trying."

"Honey," Mrs. Dodds turned and barked at me. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

Percy gave her his deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare . Then he turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at both of us to come on.

My skin paled quickly. I looked at Percy's face and a puzzled look could be seen on his face. He was probably asking one thing.

_How'd she get there so fast?_

I saw Percy going after Mrs. Dodds. I took one more look at the scene behind me and sighed.

_Normal life say bye-bye, and Half-blood life here we come._

I went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel. I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again, not surprising. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher/monster, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...and she probably would.

"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said, eyes flickering back and forth, each second seemed to last longer. The hair on the back of my neck went on a frenzy that it felt as if it was trying to escape from my skin.

I heard Percy reply, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. I took a step back.

_She's a teacher_, I thought nervously. _A psychopathic monster disguised as a teacher sent by our Uncle... yeah everything's fine._

Percy continued, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you and your brother out. Confess, and both of you will suffer less pain."

Percy looked like he didn't know what she was talking about. Unfortunately, _I knew _what she was talking about.

Fear built up inside of me like and overflowing dam and all I could think of was that Mrs. Dodds would probably whip us back to Hades if we don't _"confess" _unfortunately I had to act like an oblivious half-blood or we would die.

Literally.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, I don't..."

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the scariest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.

"What ho, Percy! Theodore!" he shouted, and tossed the pen and a small round gold object through the air.

A coin.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at both of us.

With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my leg, I was farther from her, which only meant that Percy was farther from me _too._ I snatched the coin out of the air and in the corner of my eye, almost simultaneous, Percy did the same. I stretched my hand out but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a coin anymore. It was a bow and arrow. Mr. Brunner's set, which he always used on every other tournament days.

Mrs. Dodds spun towards Percy with a murderous look in her eyes.

My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the Bow, during that time, my hand instinctively went into a draw position.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at Percy.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I aimed and let it go.

And at the same time, Percy's sword metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water.

_Hisss!_

Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

We were alone.

There was a coin in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me and my brother. My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've thought that now a great time to go back up cause I felt sick.

_Had I imagined the whole thing?_

I swallowed the urge to throw up.

_No, I did not._

I went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw Percy and I, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."

I said, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

Percy blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr, but I prepared myself for this part and blinked as well. I then asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

After that situation I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me, and I had a feeling Percy thought so as well.

"Not funny, man," Percy told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, read-ing his book, as if he'd never moved.

Percy and I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen and antique coin. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson, and do keep you hands from picking up personal property Mr. Jackson."

Percy and I handed Mr. Brunner his respective things. I hadn't even realized I was still holding on to it. By Percy's surprised looks I could tell he was too.

"Sir," Percy said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at us blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperon. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher." I continued, quite irritated and impressed by his lying skills.

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"

For a moment, I would have thought that there _was _no _Mrs._ _Dodds,_ and that _it was_ all a _dream._ But if it wasn't for my book knowledge, I would have thought that he was right and I developed some weird mental disease.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. Thank goodness that I knew about the Mist before Percy or else I would have been driven mad. This twenty four/seven life threatening hallucination was more than I could handle.

Percy himself was convinced that:

_For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on us._

The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often Percy would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if he could trip them up, but they would stare at us like we were psychos.

It got so I almost believed them-Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost.

But Grover couldn't fool me. So did the Mist.

Every now and then a small prodding feeling would prod my head and then it was gone.

So when Percy mentioned the name _Dodds_ to him, Grover would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying. Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.

And that something was going to end our "normal life" at Yancy Academy soon.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat. And if it got _really_ intense, Percy and I would wake up at the same time while Grover would just bleat nervously.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

Percy started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time, unfortunately so was I. Percy's grades slipped from Ds to Fs, while I barely cling-ed to an E. We got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. We was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked Percy and I for the millionth time why we were too lazy to study for spelling tests, Percy and I snapped. Percy called him an old sot while I threw my broken pencil right at his nose. He shouted in a lot of languages. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it didn't sound good.

The headmaster sent our mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with our surrogate mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend of my brother's, even if he was a little strange. I didn't worry with how he'd survive next year since I knew what was going to happen to him.

I'd miss Latin class, too-Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that we could do well.

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I knew why, which was why I'd started to believe him.

The evening before our finals, Percy got so frustrated he threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. To be honest, I was getting frustrated too. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Nyx and Styx, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

Percy paced the room, looking like ants were crawling around inside his shirt. I wasn't faring too well either. I was frowning and I hated the large headache that I was having.

I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes.

_I will accept only the best from you, Percy and Theo Jackson._

I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book. I'd never asked a teacher for help before except in my old life. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers.

Apparently Percy had the same line of thought because he took his book and exited our room.

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... worried about Percy and Theodore, sir."

I froze.

I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your brother's-best-friend-but-secretly-a-saytr talking about you to an adult.

Percy inched closer.

"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a _Kindly One_ in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-"

"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need both boys to mature more."

"But they may not have time. The summer solstice dead-line- "

"Will have to be resolved without them, Grover. Let them enjoy their ignorance while they still can."

"Sir, they saw her... ."

"Their imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince them of that."

I looked at Percy. I almost snickered, if not for the life-changing situation we were in.

In all my second life I've never seen Percy so quiet.

I inched closer.

"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-"

The mythology book out of Percy's hands dropped, and suddenly I stuck out of my hand to intercept it, but it was too late. It hit the floor with a thud.

Mr. Brunner went silent.

My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than our wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

I opened the nearest door and pulled Percy with me and slipped inside.

A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.

We waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. Finally, Percy and I slipped out into the hallway and made our way back up to the dorm.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

We didn't answer.

"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

I hesitated, but answered. "Just... tired."

Percy turned so he couldn't read his expression while I started getting ready for bed.

I knew that Percy didn't understand the conversation we heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside. For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. I was quite surprised to see that I wasn't the only one with him.

"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."

His tone was kind, but the words clearly embarrassed Percy and I. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you two. It was only a matter of time."

Percy looked like he was about to cry.

I frowned. Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me and my brother that we couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me and my brother were destined to get kicked out.

"Right," Percy said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy, Theodore. That's nothing to be-"

"Thanks," Percy blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.

"Percy-"

But Percy was already gone.

With one final wolf-glare-like-glare, I raced after my brother, closing the door shut, much to the old centaur's dismay.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.

The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were _rich_ juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.

But I was a special nobody.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. What I didn't tell them was that we'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where we'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."

They went back to their conversation as if we'd never existed.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city. To be fair, even though I didn't trust him, that Saytr kinda grew to me, so it wasn't that hard to decide that maybe I should give him a chance.

Just maybe.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased.

But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

It was obvious that Percy was trying to figure something out when finally Percy couldn't stand it anymore. Percy said,

"Looking for Kindly Ones?"

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?"

Percy confessed about us eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam while I just sat near the window, looking bored.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"

He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see?" I coughed irritably, just to remind him that I was there. Grover's cheeks went red.

"-you too Theo. I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..."

"Grover-"

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were over-stressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."

Percy cut him off. "Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."

His ears turned pink.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes. I didn't bother to read it, cause Percy read it out for me. Written on the card was something like:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

"What's Half-"

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."

Percy's expression changed.

"Okay," he said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."

Grover nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

Obviously it came out harsher than he meant it to.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy and Theodore, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you."

Percy stared at him. I looked at him too.

All year long, Percy (and sometimes me) have gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended Percy.

"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else. We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at Percy _and_ me.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face.

His nose was twitching.

"Grover?" Percy said. "Hey, man-"

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?" Percy chuckled, though his sea green eyes were slightly pale.

"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" Percy said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, dragging Percy with him, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic, involuntarily I shuddered. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks and suddenly, one of them started to walk _towards_ me.

I was frozen. My blood ran cold as she came towards me and plucked another yarn.

A bright red one.

Then she gestured for my hand. Willingly I gave it to her, only for her to tie the thin yarn around my wrist.

"What-"

The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. The passengers cheered. I turned around and they were gone.

_Great, immortal beings._

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu, the red yarn glowed against my skin and I started feeling sick. Grover and Percy didn't look much better. They were shivering and their teeth were chattering.

"Grover?" Percy asked.

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?"

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Theodore, Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling-no _knew_ that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds.

He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

Percy and I replied. "The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. Through the window so?" But even as Percy said it, realization crossed his face and he knew it was a big deal.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?" I asked.

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover," Percy said, his voice shaky. "What are you talking about?"

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"Is this like a superstition or something?" Percy asked.

No answer.

I started hesitantly,"Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?" But I knew the answer, the red string glowed briefly.

He looked at us mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers we'd like best on our coffins.


	7. Chapter 6

Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.

I know, I know. It was rude. But to be fair, it wasn't actually _my idea_ in the first place. It was evident that Grover was freaking him out, looking at both of us like we were dead men, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to he sixth grade?"

Well I had the same feeling, so as soon as Grover's bladder acted up, I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made us promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, Percy got our suitcases with an expression asking "_are you coming?" _slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown. "East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," We told the driver.

Sally Jackson is the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. After a few years of accepting this fact, I've grown to being used to saying and referring her as "mom". Anyways her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him.

After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma. The only good break she ever got was meeting our dad. I have only one memory of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile, which I knew he did. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her has no pictures.

See, they weren't married.

She told us that he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back. Lost at sea, my new mom told us. Not dead. Lost at sea.

She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised us on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew that I wasn't an easy kid.

Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When Percy was young, he nick-named him Smelly Gabe.

I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts. Between the three of us, we made our mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he, Percy and I got along ... well, when we came home is a good example.

We walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.

Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."

"Where's my mom?" Percy asked.

"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"

That was it.

No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months? Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tusk-less walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something. He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer.

Whenever I was home, he expected us to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if we told my mom, he would punch my lights out.

"I don't have any cash," I told him.

He raised a greasy eyebrow. Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.

"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"

Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kids just got here."

"Am I right?" Gabe repeated. Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.

"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of 6 dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table, keeping a dollar for safekeeping. I always kept the change cause Percy would always give _all _of the change to Gabe.

"I hope you lose."

"Your report cards came, brain boys!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"

Percy slammed the door to our room, which really wasn't my room.

During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer. Percy and I dropped our suitcases on the bed.

Home sweet home.

Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.

I looked into the hidden cookie jar I hid under the bed, I covered my nose in disgust. The smell was even worse than up there. Eventually I found it and to my surprise, the twenty-one one dollar bill were still there.I grinned and placed the one dollar bill that I salvaged inside the jar.I stopped for a while, remembering what was gonna happen, I took the wad of the now twenty-two dollar bills and placed it in my jacket pockets.

But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic-how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone, _something_-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.

Then we heard our mom's voice. "Percy? Theo?" She opened the bedroom door, and our fears melted.

My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.

"Oh, Percy." She hugged him tight."I an't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!" Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought us a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when we came home they sat together at the edge of the bed, with me still standing I stood out like a sore thumb.

Sally must've noticed cause she said. "You too Theodore."

I grinned. Theodore was a name that people would often call me as I got a bit older, I didn't like it when people call me that cause it makes me sound cuter than I really was. But right now, being hugged tightly by Sally, I didn't mind it, not one bit.

While I attacked the blueberry and lime-green sour strings, she ran her hand through our hair and demanded to know everything we hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that.

But was I okay? Were her little boys doing all right? We told her that she was smothering us, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.

From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally-how about some bean dip, huh?" I gritted my teeth.

Our mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe. For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said.

I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. Percy started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad. Until that trip to the museum ...

"What?" my mom asked. Sally must've noticed. Her eyes tugged at our consciences, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"

"No, Mom." Percy replied, though it was obvious that he felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid and scary, _really_ scary.

I was actually surprised that she didn't see the red string wrapped around my wrist. I didn't know what it meant, but I _had a feeling _that, that "gift" from the Fates equals a short life, my _short_ life. I paled for a bit and glanced at the bright red string. I never tried untying it, and it obviously meant that it was magical, but I didn't want to risk damaging it encase I got a _shorter_ life. As far as I understood, that red _string _was _my life force_.

And that my life was dangling from a string.

Literally.

I paled once more.

She pursed her lips. She knew we were holding back, but she didn't push us.

"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."

My eyes widened. "Montauk?"

Percy asked hopeful. "Three nights-same cabin?"

"When?"

She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."

I couldn't believe it. My mom, Percy and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money. Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"

Percy looked like he wanted to punch him, but we met our mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.

"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip." Gabe's eyes got small.

"The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"

"I knew it," Percy muttered beside me. "He won't let us go."

"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."

Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"

"Yes, honey," our mother said.

"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."

"We'll be very careful."

Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kids apologizes for interrupting my poker game."

_Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot,_ I thought. _And make you sing soprano for a week._

But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. I knew why. Percy looked absolutely livid, his green eyes churned with dislike. His eyes said it all:

_Why did she put up with this guy? Why did she care what he thought?_

"We're sorry," Percy muttered.

"We're really sorry we interrupted your incredibly important poker game." I continued."Please go back to it right now."

Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.

"Yeah, whatever," he decided. He went back to his game.

"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgot-ten to tell me, okay?" The red string glowed briefly as she finished her sentence.

For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air. But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled our hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip. An hour later we were ready to leave. Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more importantly, his '78 Camaro-for the whole weekend.

"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."

Like _we'd_ be the one driving. We were _twelve._ But that didn't matter to Gabe.

If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me. Watching him lumber back toward the apartment build-ing, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, Percy and I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair-case as if he'd been shot from a cannon.

Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out. We got in the Camaro and told our mom to step on it.


	8. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson only Theodore. **

**Chapter 6**

Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.

I loved the place.

We'd been going there since we were babies. Our mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met our dad. As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.

Just like mine.

The ride itself was uneventful, but I knew that something else was gonna be different in the end, I just didn't know what. It was calming to say, the presence of the sea and the calming voice of my new mother and brother.

We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue and green corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue and green jelly beans, blue and green saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work. I guess I should explain the blue and green food.

See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue and green. She baked blue and green birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry and green smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue and green candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano-was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like Percy and I.

When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. I winced each time a tiny spark or flame jumped out of the fire. I remembered when I first tried to make a campfire right at this very beach on one of our vacation days. I lit it the campfire, but instead of a _normal_ fire, I got really excited resulting in creating a big, huge bon-fire instead. Luckily, we were near the sea and the niaeds kindly dosed the fire for me, much to my relief.

Anyway, mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.

Eventually, Percy got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.

"He was kind, Percy," she said. Looking at my twin as she spoke. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes Percy."

She left me out.

Sure it hurts, but I always knew that our Mom kinda favoured Percy when we got older. We started to look like him as we got older, but it was obvious that Percy looked like our dad the most. I looked over at the horizon, admiring the fading sunset. In the corner of my eye I could see the ocean in all it's amazing glory. I saw the dorsal fin of a dolphin and a couple of naiads watching me and Percy with curiosity, I was quite startled when I saw it, but I ignored it in the end, instead I watched the sky in silence.

_It hurts a bit, that Sally obviously favored Percy, but I didn't mind, I'm cool._

At least that's what I kept telling myself.

Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you two, Percy and Theodore . He would be so proud." I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about us? Two dyslexic, hyperactive boys with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.

"How old was I?" Percy asked. "I mean ... when he left?" She watched the flames.

"He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."

"But... he knew me as a baby." Percy asked, confusion evident in his tone.

"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born." I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.

I had always assumed he knew me as a baby, I mean I _saw_ him and was carried by him as a baby, but then I remembered that odd feeling when I fell asleep, it was as if something was prodding inside my head. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me ... I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for removing a bit of his existence in our memories. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.

"Are you going to send me away again?" Percy asked her. "To another boarding school?"

She pulled a marshmallow from the fire. "I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."

"Because you don't want us around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out. I winced.

My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took our hands, squeezed it tight.

"Oh, Percy, Theodore, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away." Her words reminded me of what Percy said that Mr. Brunner had said-that it was best for us to leave Yancy.

"Because we're not normal," we said.

"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy, Theodore. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you two would finally be safe."

"Safe from what?"

She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget. During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed Percy when he told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.

Before that-a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope Percy and I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.

I placed a free hand near to my neck.

I could still feel it. It's snaky body trying to wrap around my neck when I was a kid, when I was asleep, when I was vulnerable.

In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move. I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about the weird red-string/life force currently tied around my wrist. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.

"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy, Theo-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."

"Our father wanted us to go to a special school?"

"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."

My head was spinning. Why would my dad talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before? I had so many questions, so many answers to the question itself that my head started to hurt.

"I'm sorry, Percy, Theodore," she said, seeing the look in my eyes.

"But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good.

"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."

She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if we asked her any more questions she would start to cry.

That night I had a vivid dream.

It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuck-led somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.

I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No! But as I reached them, the red string around my wrist glowed a bright red, before enlarging and wrapping itself around a dark figure. I tried to lasso the figure in before the string _snapped_ and a searing pain overcame me as the red string broke.

I woke with a start.

Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There were no horses or eagles on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery. Immediately I reached for the red string around my right wrist and to my relief, it was still there, glowing a bright red, but still intact.

I let out a sigh.

Soon enough, Percy woke up, his hair plastered on his face, fear written in his eyes. He too woke up with a start.

With the next thunderclap, our mom woke.

She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."

I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end. Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand.

A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door. My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock. Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain.

But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.

"Searching all night," he gasped.

"What were you thinking?" Our mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.

"Percy, Theodore," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain.

"What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?" Percy and I were frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.

"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled.

"It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?" I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. I was too shocked that the scene in the books were really happening.

Because Grover didn't have his pants on-and where his legs should be ...

Where his legs should be ...

My mom looked at us sternly and talked in a tone she'd never/rarely used before: "Percy. Theodore. Tell me now!" Percy and I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and our mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning. She grabbed her purse, tossed me our rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"

Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.

Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.


	9. Chapter 8

We tore through the night along dark country roads.

Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind-shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas. Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. The moment Percy met my eyes I could tell that he felt the same. He kept turning to take a look at Grover as if trying to convince himself that it was just a dream.

A very weird dream.

But no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo- lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.

All we could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"

Grover's eyes flitted to the rear view mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching the both of you. "

"Watching us?" I asked, suddenly feeling miffed.

"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily, more to Percy than to me. "I am your friend."

Percy looked confused, "But um ... _what_ are you, exactly?"

"That doesn't matter right now."

Percy argued. "It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-"

Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!" I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.

"Goat!" he cried.

Suddenly Percy's face was filled with confusion.

"What?"

Grover gestured to himself. "I'm a goat from the waist down."

"You just said it didn't matter." I pointed out.

"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult!"

"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?" Percy asked, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy-Theodore? Was Mrs. Dodds a _myth_?"

"Aha!"I let out a triumphant shout."So you _admit_ there was a _Mrs. Dodds_!"

"Of course."

"Then why-"

"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."

"Who I-wait a minute, what do you mean?" The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.

"Percy, Theodore," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you two to safety."

"Safety from what? Who's after us?" I asked, dreading to know the answer to a question I already knew the answer to.

"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."

"Grover!"

"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?" I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I could never dream up something this weird. Besides, dream objects are not _usually_ so realistic that they could literally kill you. My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.

"Where are we going?" I asked, holding onto my seat as the car swerved violently.

"The summer camp I told you two about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for our sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."

"The place you didn't want us to go." I said, still processing the actual reality of the situation.

"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."

"Because some old ladies cut yarn." Percy continued.

"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."

Percy held his hands up in a sort of time-out gesture.

"Whoa. You said 'you.'"

"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"

"You meant 'you.' As in me."

"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."

"Boys!" my mom said. She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.

"What was that?" I asked.

"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."

I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive. Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.

My mind processing this information. Now I knew why Percy couldn't keep calm and think straight, we were all relying on instinct now. Suddenly everything about this world didn't seem cool, not anymore.

No it was a nightmare.

Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the bow he had thrown me.

The bow.

It wasn't there originally, so why-

Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded. I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said,

"Ow."

"Percy! Theodore!" my mom shouted.

"I'm okay... ." I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in. Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road.

Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump.

"Grover!"

He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my brother's best friend and I don't want you to die! Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.

"Percy, Theodore," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered. I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.

Percy swallowed hard. "Who is-"

"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car." My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.

"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy-Theodore-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"

"What?" Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.

"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."

"Mom, you're coming too." Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.

"No!" Percy shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."

"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder. The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns ...

"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you...The both of you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."

"But..."

"We don't have time, Percy. Theodore. Go. Please." I got mad, then-mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull, at Percy's stubbornness. I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain.

"We're going together. Come on, Mom." Percy yelled against the rain.

"I told you-"

"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover." Percy didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, helping Percy drag Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom and Percy hadn't came to my aid. Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist high grass. Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster.

He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under-wear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary.

Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders. His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.

I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. I blinked the rain out of my eyes. I was so surprised that I almost dropped the young Saytr.

I pointed at the figure."That's-"

"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."

"But he's the Min-" Percy continued.

"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."

The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least. I glanced behind me again. The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows-or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.

"Food?" Grover moaned.

"Shhh," I told him. But he continued to moan, irritated and scared, I clamped his mouth shut.

"Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?" Percy asked.

"Yeah," I agreed. Though I kept tensing each time I heard a loud _thump. _I massaged my shoulders for a bit. I hated feeling tense. It meant danger and I don't like the idea of me-anyone of us really- to die horribly. So far, I can understand _why_ it was _highly not advisable_ to be _one_ in the first place.

I groaned.

_Why was I reborn into a Half-blood?_

"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough." As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage.

He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.

_Not a scratch,_ I remembered Gabe saying.

Oops.

"Percy, Theodore," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way- directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"

"H-how do you know all this?" Percy asked. He looked tired and scared, not that anyone of us were looking any better.

"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you two near me."

"Keeping us near you? But-" Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill. The hair at the back of my neck rose up. Fear and adrenaline rushed through me. I wanted to turn around and hide, but I knew that I couldn't. Not now anyway.

He'd smelled us.


End file.
